Confined Space @ TPH
sb admin | April 28, 2009UPDATE: Event photos are here
Early this morning, a few dozen of us gathered in front of the Department of Labor headquarters to observe Workers Memorial Day by remembering those who were injured or killed on the job and by calling for changes that will protect others from the same fate. What made this event particularly powerful was the presence of family members who had lost someone â a husband, a son, an uncle, a nephew â to a workplace fatality. They came from Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and New Jersey to remind government officials that the terrible toll of…
sb admin | April 27, 2009Tomorrow, April 28th, is Workers Memorial Day. Tammy at United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities has compiled an extensive list of events taking place across the US, and Hazards Magazine has links to events from around the world. Commenter Joan Lichterman also alerted us to an event at UC Berkeley.
If you're in the DC area, join us in front of the Department of Labor (200 Constitution Ave. NW) at 8am for a rally with family members who've lost loved ones to workplace fatalities. At 9am, we'll march to the Senate and House hearing chambers.
At 10am, two Congressional committees…
sb admin | April 24, 2009Civilian contractors supporting U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan face many of the same dangers as troops do, but the system for providing healthcare when theyâre injured is very different. An investigation by the Los Angeles Times and Pro Publica found that the insurance companies responsible for their treatment routinely deny serious medical claims. The company responsible for nine out of ten claims from civilians injured in the war zones is one whose name has become very familiar to most of us: AIG.
T. Christian Miller and Doug Smith report that insurers filed protests in half of the…
sb admin | April 23, 2009Next Tuesday (April 28th) is Workers Memorial Day, when people around the world remember workers killed and injured on the job and call for improved workplace safety and health.
Here in DC, weâre marking the occasion with a rally in front of the Department of Labor, then a march to the House and Senate hearing chambers. Committees from both the House and Senate will be holding hearings on worker safety, and The Pump Handleâs own Celeste Monforton will be testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee's Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety.
Details on…
sb admin | April 15, 2009Last summer, a fire in an illegal coal mine in Chinaâs Hebei province killed 35 workers â and the mine owners managed to conceal the tragedy for three months. The New York Timesâ Sharon LaFraniere reports:
The mine owner paid off grieving families and cremated the minersâ bodies, even when relatives wanted to bury them. Local officials pretended to investigate, then issued a false report. Journalists were bribed to stay silent. The mine shaft was sealed with truckloads of dirt.
âIt was so dark and evil in that place,â said the wife of one miner who missed his shift that day and so was spared…
sb admin | April 11, 2009
by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: A Gazette Watchdog blog
Last August, Kanawha Valley residents lived through the spectacle of their public safety officials practically begging the folks who run the Bayer CropScience chemical plant to tell them what was on fire, and what toxic chemicals residents nearby were being exposed to.
Remember the exchange between Metro 911 officials and the plant?
âWell, I canât give out any information, like I say, weâll contact you with the, with the proper information,â a plant gate worker who identified himself only as Steve told a 911…
sb admin | April 9, 2009McDonaldâs is the largest purchaser of potatoes in this country, so anything it does to reduce the use of pesticides on these crops will have a big impact on potato workers (as well as the environment). Thanks to pressure from shareholder advocates, McDonaldâs has now committed to:
(1) survey its current U.S. potato suppliers; (2) compile a list of best practices in pesticide reduction that will be recommended to the companyâs global suppliers (through the companyâs Global Potato Board); and (3) communicate findings related to best practices to shareholders, and in the companyâs annual…
sb admin | April 8, 2009We got some very exciting news today! The Pump Handle has obtained an email sent to OSHA staff announcing that Jordan Barab will be Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA and Acting Assistant Secretary. Blog readers may be familiar with Jordan because his Confined Space blog was for several years the number-one online source of news and opinion about worker health and safety.
Of course, Jordan also lots of work experience not directly related to his blogging:Â He spent 16 years running AFSCME's health and safety program; served as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for OSHA; was a…
sb admin | April 6, 2009For four days last month, the staff working on OSHA's cranes and derricks rule listened to testimony and exchanged information with witnesses during the agency's public hearing on the proposed safety standard.  The hearing concluded on March 20, yet another step in the now five-year process by OSHA to update its crane standards. The standards on the books date back to 1971.  Troubling to me is the post-hearing notice issued by DOL's Solicitor's Office.  SOL (for its client OSHA) announced that the hearing record would remain open for another 90 days to allow participants…
sb admin | April 3, 2009The Associated Press is reporting that last month MSHA inspectors found tremolite asbestos at a quarry owned by the Ash Grove Cement Company, part of its Kaiser plant in Jefferson County, Montana. The article quotes MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere saying that asbestos is present in the pit as âisolated occurrencesâ due to geologic intrusions in certain zones of the quarry.
Isolated occurrences?....of asbestos?
I pray this quote was taken out of context. Surely no one at MSHA would dare minimize the serious risk to workers' health from exposure to asbestos---even if the source of…
sb admin | April 2, 2009The Dept of Labor's Inspector General issued not one, but two reports yesterday criticizing OSHA's management practices, and fueling calls for the prompt appointment of competent, worker-safety committed leaders to get the agency back on track.  The first IG report concerns the "consulting services" provided by Mr. Randy Kimlin, an advisor to (and South Carolina buddy of) former OSHA chief Ed Foulke. Kimlin worked at OSHA from April 2006 to July 2008. The IG reports in Procurement Violations and Irregularities Occurred in OSHA's Oversight of a Blanket Purchase Agreement that Mr.…
sb admin | April 1, 2009âThe Cruelest Cuts,â the Charlotte Observerâs excellent series about âthe human cost of bringing poultry to your table,â has won five journalism awards for the Observer.
Reporters Ames Alexander, Kerry Hall, Franco Ordoñez, Ted Mellnik, and Peter St. Onge undertook a 22-month investigation to get the story. They filed FOIA requests for hundreds of poultry-plant inspection files, and interviewed more than 200 current and former poultry workers. What they learned was that poultry-plant workers suffer high rates of crippling injuries, but companies cover up the problem - and workers fear losing…
sb admin | March 31, 2009The New York Times' R.N. Kleinfield and Steven Greenhouse offer us a glimpse of the nightmare known as the workers' compensation system. In their article A World of Hurt: For Injured Workers, a Costly Legal Swamp,* they report from the Queens NY office of the NY State Workers' Compensation Board and explain that injured workers:
"come to the board seeking authorization for medical treatment and replacement wages...what they find instead is...a $ 5.5 billion-a-year state-run bureaucracy that struggles to treat workers with due speed, protect employers from fraud or mute tensions in the…
sb admin | March 25, 2009Whistleblowers often play key roles in uncovering problems, from unsafe working conditions to embezzlement and fraud. Yet when the Project on Government Oversight examined the Inspectors General system, which receives and investigates complaints about federal agencies, it found that IGs too often treat whistleblowers as afterthoughts and fail to protect them from retaliation.
The Washington Postâs Ed OâKeefe highlights some of POGOâs findings on his Federal Eye blog, and emphasizes the problems that the report found with the websites and call centers that are supposed to make it easy for…
sb admin | March 20, 2009For the first second time in Department of Labor history, the Solicitor of Labor (SOL) will be a woman.* Yesterday, the White House announced a handful of appointments, including M. Patricia Smith to the top attorney slot at DOL.  This position requires Senate confirmation.
Ms. Smith is the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor and co-chair of New York Stateâs Economic Security agency. Prior to that, she served for 20 years in the Labor Bureau of the New York State Attorney Generalâs Office, including as its chief.  The Commission's website highlights her efforts…
sb admin | March 20, 2009The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward posted two items yesterday at Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog concerning records related to the August 2008 explosion at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, WV that killed two workers (previous posts here, here, here, here), and OSHA's and CSB's reticence in making certain records available to the public.Â
In OSHA Secrecy? Ward describes his attempt to obtain a copy of Bayer CropScience "notice of content." This is the official communication sent to OSHA by the company indicating that they are challenging the OSHA citations. The…
sb admin | March 18, 2009University of California Berkeley's Health Research for Action is calling on OSHA to revise its occupational health standard on lead, which is now 30 years old. In a report entitled "Indecent Exposure: Lead Puts Workers and Families at Risk," the authors describe the adverse health effects of lead in workers with blood-lead levels of 5-10 ug/dL---a fraction of OSHA's medical removal trigger of 60 ug/dL. They note:
"...extensive research has shown that lead causes significant health problems in adults at much lower levels. Cumulative exposure to low to moderate levels of lead has been…
sb admin | March 18, 2009The National Air and Space Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution here in DC, has asbestos in its wall seams â a situation unlikely to pose harm to visitors, but a potential risk to workers who might be cutting or drilling into walls. Seventeen years ago, managers were informed about the presence of asbestos, and a consultantâs report advised that workers be alerted to its presence. But, report James V. Grimaldi and Jacqueline Trescott in the Washington Post, that rarely happened.
A year ago, the museum finally held an âasbestos awarenessâ safety briefing for workers, and lighting…
sb admin | March 17, 2009With an announcement today in the Federal Register, Labor Secretary Solis' OSHA is moving in a new direction to address occupational exposure to diacetyl. The butter-flavoring agent is associated with respiratory harm, including bronchiolitis obliterans. Just six days ago, Ronald Kuiper, 69, a former American Pop Corn Co succumbed to the disease.
OSHA announced it is withdrawing the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) issued on January 21, 2009, and planning to convene a panel of small business representatives (SERs) as required by SBREFA.* With this move, OSHA may be …
sb admin | March 10, 2009On March 17, OSHA will begin the public hearing phase of its rulemaking to improve workplace safety standards for cranes and derricks used in construction.  More than 30 individuals or organizations have notified OSHA of their intent to give testimony at the hearing, including several who also participated in the year-long negotiated rulemaking (NegReg) process used in 2003-2004 to develop the proposed rule.  The NegReg members' participation at the public hearing may be a blessing, or it might make me wonder whether "consensus" is ever possible under the current OSH regulatory…